Page 65 of Masquerade

“To be brutally honest, keeping Ms. Sexy secret gives you an excuse for not getting close to people.” Anna wiped a tear from Kate’s cheek, her voice vibrating with rage. “You needed the space. But if you’re falling for Liam, you’re in trouble. Because if he doesn’t know you, he can’t love you—my beautiful, dowdy, sexy, creative, fabulous sister.”

“I’m seeing him tomorrow night,” she offered. Liam’s pass key was a heavy weight in Kate’s pocket. The plastic fob burned where it rested against her upper thigh. She’d refused him shelter at her cottage. He’d accepted her privacy but raised the stakes by offering up some of his.

“That’s your solution?” Anna smiled wryly. “Focusing on the job, winning the case and getting to know each other in stages?”

“Liam’s special. We both need time. I’ll tell him when I’m no longer under contract to Clelland’s.” Kate told herself she wasn’t a coward, just cautious.

“From all you’ve told me, he’s not a man who takes kindly to being deceived. Waiting for the job to end is making a pact with the devil.” Anna gripped her hands tightly. “Little red horns are not a good look on you.”

“A few weeks, maybe months depending on developments.” And she was considering the scary prospect of telling Liam her dreams.

Baby steps.

Her hand crept to her throat.

Baby steps.

“I’m not lying. I share more with him each time I see him.”

“Keeping a secret is a lie of omission.” Anna’s brow creased. “Tell him you’re a romance writer sooner rather than later. I know you. You won’t be happy if you don’t tell him the truth.”

Anna had said her piece and wouldn’t push again. But Anna didn’t know the damage Selina had done.

“Have you eaten? I’ve got a zucchini frittata.”

“Sounds great.” Kate watched her sister disappear into the kitchen.

Self-respect was important to a man like Liam before he’d trust a lover. Winning the case would restore that.

––––––––

Kate leaned on Liam’sbuzzer a second time. Glancing over her shoulder, she pulled the collar of her raincoat higher. No answer, so no excuse not to use Liam’s spare key. She stepped into the glass and steel lobby of the towering apartment block, the hairs on the back of her neck rising in instinctive discomfort. This whole precinct, on the edge of the central business district, had been demolished and rebuilt—badly, in her opinion—in recent years. A few aspidistras, with the plant-hire firm’s logo on the side of the pots, attempted to create a welcome, but the polished leaves looked more artificial than real. She stretched out a finger—real.

The lift was a throwback to an earlier time, dim lighting and Muzak. The contrast disoriented her, reinforcing her sense she didn’t belong here. Watching the floor numbers climb, she distracted herself by imagining what sort of female lead would live in a building cloned from some second-rate architect’s manual—a financial wizard focused on work? A blackmailer like Selina? A princess held captive by a demon?

She dawdled down the well-lit hallway hoping Liam might magically appear before she needed to enter his private domain. He’d granted her the right to privacy about her cottage, then handed her a key to his apartment. Not a casual gesture to match their casual relationship, but an unspoken indicator he was ready to share more of his life.

“For pity’s sake, get a grip, woman.”

Inside his door, absolute darkness blinded her. After a few failed attempts, her fingers found the switch, flooding the entry with light. Groaning, she closed her eyes, preferring blindness. When she opened them, nothing had changed. She questioned whether anything she’d learned about Liam had been real. Still, she explored his apartment, knowing he’d expect her to. She was a trespasser, moving through impersonal rooms searching vainly for Liam’s warm scent.

The rigid formality was a nightmare, magnifying the disconnect with the man who’d shared her bed at Greentree Passage and reminding her of the suit she’d first met at Clelland’s.

Her wanderings led her to the kitchen—a friendlier space. Small but unusual, with tall, slender cupboards reaching towards the raised ceiling. Laminated burgundy for the benchtops, polished cork for the floor. A small, built-in bookcase inside a breakfast nook had the look of a home-handyman addition. She scanned titles. No romance novels in his collection. She chided herself for hoping to find them. His collection was mostly secondhand, sci-fi and crime novels. Their spines were bent as if he’d curled up with them at night. She could picture him bending back the cover as he found a more comfortable position in bed for a second or third reading. She released her trapped breath.

The outside light had come on. She must have hit that switch too.

“Snap.” She was looking at a miniature replica of the garden she’d created around her cottage—a quiet retreat with running water, a pond and a wooden bench beneath the shrubbery. The anxiety pressing against her breastbone eased.

Crossing the floor to stand at the glass doors looking on to the garden, she touched a hand to the toughened glass. She belonged in the garden. She didn’t belong in this apartment, imprisoned by the rain which beat against her hand where she pressed it to the glass. Garden or apartment, which represented the real Liam?

“Decision time, Kate—are you staying or going?” she asked aloud.

* * *

Liam wrestled his frontdoor open, then dropped his briefcase and overcoat before stepping up to her.

“I heard the door.” She excused her presence in the hall.

---